Howard Stark (Earth-6160)
All the things I have made are tainted with a patina of evil. All of them but one. And that is you. If this has found its way to you, then I am gone and I have left you a world that is no place for the innocent. But only innocent eyes can see it for what it could be. Remember, Anthony...It's never too late to change the world around you...You just have to fight. And you have to win.
—Howard Stark in his final letter[source]
Howard Stark was an inventor and one of the founders of Stane/Stark Industries alongside his lifelong friend and business partner Obadiah Stane. An unparalleled genius, Howard was lauded by the public due to his life-altering inventions, one of them a powered battlesuit that earned him the alias of Iron Man. It is unknown at what point in history he became Iron Man, though he was shown failing to prevent John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.[1] Howard was headquartered at Stark Tower in Manhattan, where he lived with his teenager son Tony. Stark held massive power as his and Stane's company was the umbrella corporation that controlled the geopolitical region known as the North American Union, one of the seven sovereign bodies whose combined power governed the entire world. Despite being one of the most important leaders of the globe, Howard was never interested in politics and only focused on his scientific researches to help society; he shunned the spotlight altogether, preferring to work on his laboratory and letting the results of his inventions speak for themselves. Because of this, Obadiah acted as the public face of Stane/Stark Industries.[2]
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His reserved nature cost Howard the knowledge of the true workings of the world. The dynamics between the seven sovereign bodies were a pretense held by their leaders, who all operated as a singular secret cabal led by the imperator of the world, the Maker. Working off his belief that genuine long-term peace was unattainable, geopolitical conflicts and alliances were orchestrated to rally together the citizens of each territory.[3] Howard would finally become privy to this knowledge after finally accepting to attend a convergence of incorporated nation-states in Latveria, the home of the Maker. The assembly was interrupted by an assault from an army of super-soldiers sent from the future by an enemy of the Maker, the time-travelling warrior Kang. Before the strike force was subdued, Stane was killed during the attack.[2] As he was formally introduced to the members of the Maker's cabal afterward, Howard's eyes were opened to the truth. Stark rejected the cabal's ideals, and became ashamed of his passive compliance.[3]
A deeper layer to world order was the secret origins of the Maker. An invader from another universe, the Maker had used his foreknowledge of the would-be status quo of the world to rewrite history to his image, most notably disrupting in the inception of the world's super heroes. To this end, he had used a time-travelling device called the Immortus Engine. Due to an injury sustained in his first encounter with Kang, the Maker lost the memories of the creation of the Immortus Engine, and came to believe that it was a future invention of Howard. Since the Immortus Engine was broken, the Maker enlisted his help to build a second working copy.[2] Howard briefly returned to America for Obadiah's funeral, and shared his discovery with Tony, who encouraged Howard to fight the Maker's cabal.[3]
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With Richards
When he returned to Latveria to work on the Immortus Engine, Howard settled in the Maker's base, the City, and was introduced to an assistant, a prisoner of the imperator named Reed Richards.[3] Opting to betray the Maker, and after weeks of work, Iron Man distracted the Maker by delivering him the finished second Immortus Engine, while Reed snuck into the City's mainframe and deactivated its temporal shield, giving Kang and his army an opening to strike. Empowered by the second Immortus Engine, Howard defeated both the Maker and Kang before the City sealed itself off, trapping all of them together. Beforehand, Reed escaped with the original damaged Immortus Engine in order to repair it alongside Tony. With Howard presumed dead, Tony created his own armored persona in his honor, Iron Lad, and set out to rectify the Maker's impact in the world, alongside Reed, on his father's behalf.[4]
Charming and nonchalant, Howard's personality appeared to have earned him a respectable reputation despite his introverted nature. Howard was also indifferent to his status and prestige, and his unostentatious nature made him laser-focused on his work. According to himself, Howard "never needed the applause," and was content settling for the results of his inventions and the way they helped society.[2] However, on his own admission, Howard's excessive focus on his work made him ignorant to the true workings of the world. Howard was also principled and righteous, not only rejecting the insidious ideals of the Maker's cabal once he learned of its existence, but also opting to oppose them and wishing to free the regular folk from the secret society's influence.[4]
Super-Genius Intelligence: Howard was a prolific inventor whose research and development appeared to cover a wide spectrum, from advanced weaponry to health sciences, and earned him the epithet of a "wizard of innovation."[2] Howard's last breakthrough was the Picotech, described by Tony as revolutionary and beyond anything he knows how to make.[5]
Iron Man Armor: Although Howard possessed no super-powers of his own, he wore a powerful battlesuit which enhanced his durability and strength. It also gave him flight capabilities, and it came equipped with wrist-mounted blasters.[4]